RELATED APPLICATIONS
There are no applications related hereto heretofore filed in this or any foreign country.
1. Field of Invention
My invention relates generally to padded animal harness having low pressure elastic pneumatic elements, and more particularly to such harness that is air permeable to cause ventilation therebeneath.
2. Background and Description of Prior Art
Since its early history animal harness has been padded in various manners to make it more comfortable and less damaging to an animal and to aid in positional maintenance. In the more recent history of harness pneumatic elements of various sorts, carried either in or on the harness or sometimes associated with it, have become known for such purposes. The instant invention provides a new, novel and improved member of pneumatically padded harness.
Harness by its nature must have sufficient strength and configurationally sustaining deformability to fulfill its purpose. This requirement generally has resulted in the use of harness materials that are relatively impervious to both air and liquid such as leather, the most commonly used harness material. Harness by reason of the nature of its use must necessarily fit in close adjacency with portions of an animal which it spans. This in the past has caused sweating and prevented air access to covered portions of an animal's skin often to cause skin irritation, commonly referred to as "galling", by reason of the synergistic action of abrasion and motion of harness and the moist conditions of both harness and animal. The prior harness art has generally not adequately considered this problem nor dealt with it sufficiently to provide meaningful solutions.
My invention provides harness that is air permeable to allow ventilation of an animal's skin underlying the harness to aid in resolving the galling problem. My blanket has a central pad of felted fibrous material which allows relatively free passage of air therethrough, and the pad has a fabric covering that is loosely woven to be as air permeable as the felted pad. My strap is formed with similar mesh side elements that allow free passage of air therethrough while the efficiency and utility of the strap is maintained by a traditional leather strap carried only on the medial portion of one outer side of the mesh side element that is distal from an animal's body to allow air flow to the covered body portion.
To further aid padding and ventilation of my harness, I provide medial low pressure pneumatic elements extending over a substantial portion of the area of a harness element. My blanket pads are formed with a plurality of adjacent elongate pockets, each carrying an elastic pneumatic element such as a bicycle tire inner tube deformed into two adjacent linear courses with folded interconnecting ends. My strap harness provides a pocket between mesh sides to carry a similar elongate pneumatic element. The pneumatic elements are inflated to a pressure of approximately one pound above that of the ambient atmosphere so that when force is applied on the harness elements by an animal, a load or a rider, those elements change configuration. In so doing various portions of the harness move, to create somewhat of a pneumatic pumping action that causes air to move between the two sides of the harness and thus ventilate the body portions of an animal beneath the harness.
My invention resides not in any one of these features individually, but rather in the synergistic combination of all of its structures that give rise to the functions necessarily flowing therefrom as specified and claimed.